Yes it does help, doing it before the sun comes up can prevent a lot of damage. I've also heard spraying your plants with a water and liquid seaweed solution when frost is expected also helps. I have hosed plants down with good results but have not done the liquid seaweed.

Annette

Thank you! Wanted to make sure it wasn't a myth or something. Up before dawn for me!

LOL, I should have said before the sun gets a chance to hit the plants not before the sun comes up. If I've got it right when the sun hits the frost it expands and damages the plant tissue, so hosing the frost off prevents a lot of damage. Let us know how it goes.

Annette

Oh. haha. That does give me about another hour of sleep.
:-)

Good luck to you all who are having freezing temps tonight. I cannot imagine it, but I remember when DH was working in the Panhandle, I went up for a week the end of May. It snowed 6", and I was shocked! Goodness, by now, I am worried about the night temps being too high for tomatoes to set.

Do get that frost washed off before the sun gets on your plants. It does help, according to my friend in Colorado.

Janie

Okay, well, good thing I got up this morning. Went out about 6:30 and everything was covered with frost. The sheets I had put over the veggies were stiff with it. Went to spray everything and the hose had frozen. grr... started using watering cans. Finally got the hose to work and got everything sprayed off.

Now, back to bed for a bit of a nap, have a long night tonight and might not be very effective without more sleep. :-)

I was lucky last night...we didn't get the frost. Please let us know how effective the spraying was. Fingers crossed for you.

Scully -- I hope your garden didn't suffer any serious damage. I did the hose off thing when we had a late frost in April and it seemed to work well -- before the sun hit the leaves.

It was 40 degrees here this morning.

Cameron

Well this is probably way to late but ....

What you do is turn the sprinkler on before the frost hits. So the water hitting the plants stops the frost from hitting. Once frost hits....damage may be done. Tropicals will most likely be toast. Annuals like petunias snaps and other should be fine....or should put out new growth. They may turn red and lose leaves. Marigolds will look red and may not die, but won't bush out and look nice either. Perennials you may lose the tops.....they turn black and get crispy.....but may send up new growth this year or next. If the crowns turn black they are toast....but I suspect the frost wasn't hard enough to kill the crowns.

Remember many plants can take some frost.

Sierra

So, the spraying with water thing seemed to work. I did cover my tropicals and veggies but nothing else since I ran out of sheets. The sheets were stiff with frost. I hosed down about 6:00 AM and don't seemed to have lost a thing. (Two nights in a row now - hopefully we're done with that!)

Thanks for the advice and info!

Minor hijack- Had planted out balsam impatiens at a roadside spot, and they turned red. I assume they're toast. Schucks.

Had frost last night, too. Thankfully I covered my hanging baskets and planters. Everything else seems to have made it through. This had better be it!

If you have ever read "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder they saved the crops by pouring water on the baby corn when a frost came. Farmer Boy was the story of her husband's childhood growing up on a farm in New York State.
Joann

ghoghunter......I read the whole series of Laura Ingalls Wilder books many years ago.

We had more than frost...we got a good foot of snow yesterday and it is still on the ground this morning. It is supposed to get to +13 today....we will see.

Many plants you won't be able to tell if they have been damaged from frost for several days after. They don't usually turn black as soon as the frost hits. They turn red or sometimes stay green for a few days......then croak.

Sierra

#$%^%^&%$%# frost was a HARD frost. It actually froze several lilies (beyond repair I'm afraid) several trees, and some perennials. Most things were fine, but I hate to lose those oriental lilies. Seems awfully late in the year for such a hard frost.

Hi:
I llive on the east coast of Canada and tonite we have a frost warning. I always place wet newspaper(a few sheets) gently over some of the plants and others I cut the top of a plastic bottle(2 litre soda bottle) and place that over the plant as long as it doesn't crunch the plant down. Even plastic grocery bags. It works for me.
Maureen

THIS IS THE WORST ADVICE EVER! I hosed everything before sunrise....and they turned into mush. Absolute distraction, unrepairable. And guess what? Everything else in the neighborhood (not hosed down) survived with only minor impact. DO NOT HOSE OFF FROSTED PLANTS! It seems the rapid unfreezing actually does more damage than letting them unfreeze naturally. Back to my graveyard of a garden...never seen such dramatic destruction.

urban it sounds like your plants were frozen not just frosted, no amount of spraying helps then.

True, but still the water spraying made the damage 10 times worse. Whatever was left un-sprayed survived just fine. My takeaway was having left nature do its thing, I would be in a much better shape now. After doing more research, I found more advice online to NOT hose frost off. Now I know better for next year...

I don't use this technique at all. however I know apple producers would often use this technique to protect buds in early spring. a gentle spray is used. But that's flower buds and not leaves.

instead I leave things be in my yard. I suppose if a deep frost is expected, Id have to cover up plants with a frost cover which I can mail order in.

it works but if it refreezes after you go back to bed they will die, or if it freezes in the night and thaws before morning the plants are dead

my soil is terrible! rocky clay. so i grow in raised 4' by 8' beds. went to a good shepard shop and got used twin fitted sheets. with the elastic they fit perfect over my beds! saved my crops more than once! only works on short crops. for tomatoes and such i get tarps from the discount stores that work good.

Don't spray just finely mist

I am told that what kills a frosted plant, is the gradual rise in temperature from which the sap rises up into the frosted area, and will probably kill non frost hardy plants